Return on equity on the Massive ratios endpoint, /stocks/financials/v1/ratios, is a decimal fraction rather than a percentage, so 0.25 means 25 percent. A company with positive net income and negative equity gets a negative return on equity, and a company with a net loss and negative equity gets a positive one. Every input is a field you can read yourself from the statement endpoints, so each ratio can be checked by hand.

Applies to

• Plans: Stocks Advanced, or any plan carrying the Financials and Ratios Expansion.
• Endpoints: /stocks/financials/v1/ratios, /stocks/financials/v1/income-statements, /stocks/financials/v1/balance-sheets and /stocks/financials/v1/cash-flow-statements.
• Asset classes: US stocks.

How return on equity is calculated

Return on equity on Massive is net_income_loss_attributable_common_shareholders from the company's latest trailing-twelve-month income statement, divided by total_equity_attributable_to_parent from its latest quarterly balance sheet. Both records end on the same date. Here are McDonald's statements ending 30 June 2026:

curl -X GET "https://api.massive.com/stocks/financials/v1/income-statements?tickers=MCD&timeframe=trailing_twelve_months&period_end=2026-06-30&apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"

Response

{
  "status": "OK",
  "results": [
    {
      "tickers": ["MCD"],
      "period_end": "2026-06-30",
      "filing_date": "2026-08-07",
      "timeframe": "trailing_twelve_months",
      "consolidated_net_income_loss": 8787000000.0,
      "net_income_loss_attributable_common_shareholders": 8787000000.0
    }
  ]
}

curl -X GET "https://api.massive.com/stocks/financials/v1/balance-sheets?tickers=MCD&timeframe=quarterly&period_end=2026-06-30&apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"

Response

{
  "status": "OK",
  "results": [
    {
      "tickers": ["MCD"],
      "period_end": "2026-06-30",
      "filing_date": "2026-08-07",
      "timeframe": "quarterly",
      "total_assets": 5.992e10,
      "total_equity_attributable_to_parent": -1021000000.0,
      "total_equity": -1021000000.0
    }
  ]
}

$8,787 million divided by -$1,021 million is -8.6063, which is what the ratios endpoint returns for McDonald's:

curl -X GET "https://api.massive.com/stocks/financials/v1/ratios?ticker=MCD&apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"

Response

{
  "status": "OK",
  "results": [
    {
      "ticker": "MCD",
      "date": "2026-10-12",
      "return_on_equity": -8.6063,
      "return_on_assets": 0.1466,
      "debt_to_equity": -39.46,
      "price_to_book": -163.33
    }
  ]
}

The date moves forward every trading day, and the price-based fields move with it. Return on equity has no price in it, so -8.6063 holds until McDonald's next quarterly filing replaces the statements above. As a percentage, -8.6063 is -860.63 percent.

Which equity and which net income

The equity and the net income in Massive's return on equity are the parent and common-shareholder versions, which matters for any company with a noncontrolling interest or preferred dividends, where the statements carry two versions of each figure:

• Equity is total_equity_attributable_to_parent, not total_equity. For Carvana's statements ending 30 June 2026, the parent figure gives the 0.3893 the endpoint returns, and total_equity would give 0.3052.
• Net income is net_income_loss_attributable_common_shareholders, not consolidated_net_income_loss. For JPMorgan Chase's statements ending 30 June 2026, the common-shareholder figure gives the 0.1699 the endpoint returns, and consolidated net income would give 0.1737.

Why the figure differs from other sources

Return on equity on Massive divides by equity on one date, the latest quarter end, and does not average it. A return on equity calculated on average equity gives a different result whenever equity moved during the year. McDonald's equity attributable to the parent was -$2,760 million on 30 June 2025 and -$1,021 million on 30 June 2026. Dividing $8,787 million of net income by the average of the two, -$1,890.5 million, gives -4.6480, about half the -8.6063 from the latest quarter alone. Neither figure is an error. Compare return on equity across sources only when both divide by the same equity.

What negative equity does to the ratios

Negative equity reverses the sign of every Massive ratio that divides by equity: return on equity, debt_to_equity and price_to_book. McDonald's is profitable and carries debt, and all three of its ratios above are negative because its equity is. When a company has both a net loss and negative equity, the two negatives cancel and return on equity comes out positive, sometimes far above 1. Read the sign of net income and of equity separately before reading the ratio.

How the other ratios are calculated

Each ratio on the Massive ratios endpoint can be reproduced from the latest statements and the day's price. TTM means the latest trailing-twelve-month record, and balance sheet fields come from the latest quarterly balance sheet:

The ratios endpoint's earnings_per_share uses the shares outstanding on the price date, not the weighted average share count, so it does not match the basic or diluted EPS on the income statements, as the ratios documentation notes.

Return on equity, return on assets and dividend yield are rounded to four decimal places, and the other ratios to two, so a figure you recompute can differ in the last digit.

When a ratio is missing from the response

A ratio that cannot be calculated is left out of the Massive ratios response rather than returned as zero or null. price_to_earnings, price_to_cash_flow and price_to_free_cash_flow are calculated only when the per-share value they divide by is positive, as the ratios documentation states. A company with no revenue also comes back without price_to_sales and ev_to_sales.

If return on equity looks wrong

A return on equity with the opposite sign to net income means the company's equity attributable to the parent is negative. A return on equity far above 1 means equity is small next to net income. Check both with the two statement calls above before reporting the ratio, and if the recomputed figure still does not match, start a chat at massive.com/contact with the ticker and both numbers.

The ratios endpoint returns only the latest ratios for each ticker, and a date parameter does not return an earlier day. To build a history, recompute the ratios from the statement endpoints, which keep one record per period.

Related

• What fields can I expect from Massive's financials API?
• Does Massive provide the filing date for any financial reports?
• What is market cap and how does Massive calculate that value?